Anyone else out there going through Tour de France withdrawals yet? I don't know what I am going to do now when I come home from my ride, no more TDF to watch. Once again Lance Armstrong just stamped his authority all over the Tour. Some say it made things boring, but to me, this tour was all but boring.

    You start off with Lance dominating the prologue and Jalaberts surprise 2nd place. Then Lance goes on to place second in the first time trial of the tour. "A kink in the armor!" everyone thinks and he leaves us wondering till the mountains. In the mountains he comes out with all guns blazing and rips his rivals to shreds. Yup, Lance did it again, we all knew he would. But this isn't what I was watching, it was the Malliot Verte.

    As a rider, I will almost never ever win the Tour. Why? I'm not built to time trial and climb. Sure I can climb and time trial well, but at the level to win the TDF, nope. What I can do however is sprint with the best of them. That is why this tour was very exciting for me. Seeing the sprinting jersey competition come down to the final day and Robbie McEwen taking the overall away from Eric Zabel, the bearer of the Green Jersey for the last six years, was great to watch. It made for some great nailbitting moments.

    Ok, now I am going to eat my words from a while back ... Belgium had been having some very cool weather the past three weeks, well it's gone, and its bloody hot. I was asking for hot weather and it's here. It's not as hot as it is during the summer in Texas, but there everyone has AC, and here they don't. No longer will I complain about the weather, just take it as it comes and deal with it.

    The racing this weekend wasn't the too good. Sunday, with the temperatures in the 90's, I was only able to last 45 minutes in the race. I just never found my rhythm and couldn't push against the pedals. Monday went a lot better. I started off feeling much better and found myself in a break on the first lap. The break came back and I was feeling good. I buried myself in the field to conserve energy.

    It was hot and I was drinking a lot. Everything was going well till I drank a liquid energy box of liquid, then it happened, stomach cramps. I spent about 40 kilometers at the back of the field trying to keep things under control. Eventually they got the better of me and I started to overhear. It was to late, drinking now was pointless, the field had split and my race was over. I was very happy though because I thought that I would only last about 30 minutes and I made it over two and half hours.

    Till next week, Tot Ziens.

    -Gregg Germer-